


Four Times Pepper Potts Didn't Let Tony Stark See Her Cry (And One Time She Totally Did)

by FrodaB



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-15
Updated: 2010-05-15
Packaged: 2017-11-01 23:23:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/362420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrodaB/pseuds/FrodaB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He doesn’t ask how she is, nor does he say he’s sorry.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Times Pepper Potts Didn't Let Tony Stark See Her Cry (And One Time She Totally Did)

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for both _Iron Man_ movies. Big thanks as always to [](http://thewlisian-afer.livejournal.com/profile)[**thewlisian_afer**](http://thewlisian-afer.livejournal.com/) for the hand-holding and suggestions and all-around awesomeness.

Pepper’s first day as Tony Stark’s personal assistant is an unmitigated _disaster_. She had known it would be tough - it was, after all, now her job to make sure that one of the most irresponsible people on Earth kept to some kind of schedule - but she hadn’t realized just how _impossible_ the man really is.

He runs roughshod all over the day planner, leaving her in his proverbial wake, scrambling to pick up the pieces and hope that the board of directors won’t think she’s a complete idiot. He spends all day doing god-knows-what in that workshop of his, and she’s afraid to enter without his permission (she has a code, but it’s his inner sanctum, obviously the place he goes to get away from everything and just _be_ , and Pepper can understand that), and the weird British voice that occasionally wafts through the house to tell her things is _so_ off-putting.

And then, to top it all off, she returns from running some errands to find Mr. Stark, her new boss, in the process of undressing a woman who looks like she was pulled off the cover of _Marie Claire_ , bad airbrushing and all.

Her mortification is so great, Pepper feels an odd sense of detachment as she turns and walks back out of the house, gets in her car, and proceeds to drive home.

It’s not until she’s curled up on the couch in her small apartment, fuzzy slippers on her feet and a pint of Cherry Garcia in her hands, that she thinks it might not’ve been the best idea to just walk out, her first day on the job.

Then she thinks, _shortest term of employment ever_ , and starts to cry, the sort of crying that makes it tough for her to catch her breath. It’s been a long time since she’s felt this helpless. She’s just thrown away a huge opportunity, and an outrageous salary to boot. She’ll probably regret it for the rest of her life.

An hour later, her phone rings.

“Hello?” She’s afraid she still sounds like she’s been crying.

“Miss Potts! Hey, so, about, uh, earlier, that was my fault, it won’t happen again.”

“That’s okay, Mr. Stark. It’s your house after all -”

“Yeah, it is, but you know, the - Anyway, I just realized I’m all out of coffee, and I’m kinda stuck down here with Jarvis for a while, could you pick some up?”

Apparently she’s not fired. “I - uh, yeah…”

She learns quickly that this is his way. If he notices the thickness of tears in her voice, he ignores it because it’s easier. He doesn’t ask how she is, nor does he say he’s sorry.

Instead he shows her some of the cooler things he’s programmed Jarvis to do when she shows up with that coffee, and by the time she stumbles back to her apartment at three a.m., she feels as though he’s already carved a place for her in his life, and she won’t have a problem going down to his workshop again.

\---------

It’s been, she thinks, at least three years since she’s been able to celebrate her birthday, with people who are not coworkers, on the actual day of her birthday.

So she gets a little drunk. Just a little. Just enough that she stumbles over the threshold of her condo and giggles instead of thinking _Pepper, you idiot, he’ll probably be calling anytime…_

He won’t, not for at least another day, because he’s in Afghanistan and this is almost like a vacation for her.

The vacation ends when the phone rings, and instead of Tony, it’s Rhodey, and he says, “Jesus, Pepper, I’m so sorry…”

She doesn’t cry as he explains to her what happened, the attack on the convoy, Tony’s apparent kidnapping. She’s just numb. Her mouth is dry, and her mind lurches before skidding to a halt. Part of her brain is alert enough to have the thought, _he’s talking to you like you’re a widow_.

But that’s not important. What’s important is doing her job, with or without Tony actually present. That’s what she keeps telling herself, anyway. She doesn’t think about anything else, because that way lies madness. She can’t stop moving. Obie tries to get her to take a couple days off, but she knows that is a Very Bad Idea. Rhodey gets it, and Happy does, too, because they’re both doing exactly the same thing - going through each day, dealing with each new task at hand.

They’re working on finding Tony, of course, getting him home safely, but Pepper knows they’re also trying to figure out how to live without him.

There is so much empty space, without Tony there. It’s like she’s in free-fall.

And then, three months later, she gets another phone call in the middle of the night, and all Rhodey says is, “We found him, we’re bringing him home.”

She says, “Thank God,” though she doesn’t believe in God and never has, but she has to thank someone, and suddenly she hears Tony’s voice, arguing vociferously with an Air Force doctor, and she hangs up the phone, because hearing his voice after three months of thinking she’d never hear it again breaks something inside her.

And she knows Tony would hate to know she was crying over him.

\--------

It is the most _terrifying_ night of her life, a few hours in which the world goes to hell and back, because Obie, Obadiah Stane, is trying to kill her, him, _them_ , in that monstrous suit.

Obie has always been such a benign, fatherly figure to her, she can barely begin to wrap her head around the insanity of it, and the gun he doesn’t hesitate to point at her head.

“But you’ll die!”

But Tony _is_ dying, and Pepper does the only thing she can do, which is what he asks, and the explosion sends shock waves through the ground and up through her legs and into her guts.

All she can think is, _I killed them_. She might as well be wearing sneakers instead of designer stilettos as she climbs to the top of the ruined building. Agent Coulson has reappeared, somehow, and he must be saying something but she’s too busy yelling “Tony!” to pay any attention.

He’s there, and that thing in his chest is flickering like a flashlight running out of battery life. This is worse, so much worse, than him disappearing into the desert. She chokes back a sob over the stupid, ridiculous, egotistical, beautiful man who snuck under her skin and into her heart and who now seems to think he has to save the whole world.

He’ll live. Somehow, that insane suit didn’t destroy him the way Pepper feared, but it is just too close for comfort and she can’t help but hope and wish that he might decide to end all this nonsense.

When he wakes up, he gives her what she figures he probably thinks is a reassuring smile, and he says, “Good work, Miss Potts,” but she has to immediately excuse herself. She locks herself in one of the guest rooms and starts to cry, because she can tell already that her hoping and wishing won’t do a damn thing. She briefly contemplates quitting, again, but she can’t. Not over this.

She actually laughs through her tears, because this must be what true love is. Wanting to kill him herself and at the same time wanting to hold him and never let go.

\--------

Tony Stark does not discuss his feelings. Not with anyone, certainly not with Pepper. She feels like there’s a certain inevitability to this situation, then, as she lets Happy take her to the car. He insisted on driving her home, which is probably for the best, considering how shaken she is. Because Tony is drunk at his birthday party (this is not a new thing), and he and Rhodey are now _fighting_ each other in those suits, and destroying the house in the process (a completely new and very _scary_ thing).

Tony has had downward spirals before. Pepper has no illusions; he’s an alcoholic. She’s cleaned up his vomit far too many times to delude herself about _that_. But he’s never been violent, or destructive like this before.

He’s never been intent on killing his best friend before. In front of a large crowd of people, who will surely post videos of the scene on YouTube within the hour.

Tony Stark does not discuss his feelings, so Pepper cannot understand why this is happening. _Something_ is wrong, that much she knows, but she asked him two days ago, _What are you not telling me?_ and he just deflected, like he always does, and now this unmitigated disaster is occurring, and -

“Do you need anything, Boss?” Happy’s face is so earnest, so full of concern for her. Pepper feels a twinge of guilt.

“No, I’m fine,” she finally says. “Go home, don’t go back to Tony’s.” Her voice is hard. “Let him sleep in the bed he’s made, for once.”

He nods, and leaves, and she walks into her dark condo. And because she’s alone now, she immediately thinks about how this is going to play with the press, and how the board of directors will react (even though she is not responsible for him, anymore, they still seem to think she is, because she’s always been the only one who could keep him in any kind of control), and the tipping point is when her mind rolls back to Tony, who has had dark circles under his eyes for _weeks_ and is telling her even less than usual, and who seems intent on killing himself.

She doesn’t want to be CEO of Stark Industries because Tony’s dead.

So she cries, because she’s worried about Tony, and because she hasn’t felt so out of her depth since her first day working for him, all those years ago, but this is so much worse, because all her mistakes now are so public, and Tony’s mistakes are more dangerous than they’ve ever been before.

\---------

Despite the way it always looks in the movies, being saved by a superhero from the brink of death is neither glamorous, nor romantic.

In fact, it’s actually pretty painful. At least, that’s all Pepper registers as he carries her off. He bangs into her at an ungodly speed (and he’s in that suit, but she has no such protection, the impact alone bruises a rib or two, at least, she‘s sure), and then she’s deafened by an explosion, and there’s heat and light and metal bits sticking her in strange places and odd mechanical sounds because Tony _definitely_ got hit by some flying debris there.

Pulling out of his grasp is the logical thing to do, as soon as he sets down on that roof. Resigning is the next logical thing.

Kissing him, however, is far from logical. She doesn’t remember banging her head, but that’s the only explanation she can think of. She’s giddy.

They don’t talk, well, at _all_ in the immediate aftermath, once Rhodey has flown away (in the suit, again), and Happy shows up to get them out of there.

Tony grasps her hand a lot, though, as though to remind himself that she’s there. For her part, Pepper welcomes the silence. Her body is in some kind of shock, she’s sure, because she keeps veering between wanting to giggle like a school girl or possibly vomit.

It’s not until they’re on the plane, jetting back to California with the ruins of the Stark Expo behind them and the rising sun at their backs, that either of them says anything. And it’s Tony that breaks the silence.

“I am sorry, you know. About…” He waves a hand eloquently in front of himself.

Pepper slides her gaze from the glow at his chest, to the window, and then to his face. Which, despite the wear and tear of the last few hours, is looking better than it has in weeks.

“Tell me everything,” she says.

So he does. The palladium that was killing him, trying to find a viable substitute, realizing that he was likely to fail, realizing that he would be dead in a few days, maybe less.

He even explains the clues left by his father as he narrates his discovery of a _brand new element_.

Part of Pepper’s mind is astounded at how candid he is suddenly being. He’s not being evasive, he’s not being a smart-ass, he’s just telling her what happened, his face tired and serious, the lines around his eyes more pronounced than ever.

And the other part of her mind is reeling at the sudden knowledge of how close she’d come to losing him, _again_ , because of something she couldn’t have anticipated.

She wants to hit him for almost dying and not telling her, or maybe kiss him again, because he’s not dying anymore and she is _so glad_ , more glad than she can possibly express, and suddenly ashamed because she never thought to tell him what she felt before it was too late.

Pepper doesn’t excuse herself. She doesn’t leave the room, she doesn’t brush it off with a joke. She starts to cry, sitting there across from Tony as he explains everything.

“Shit.” She hears his voice, but it’s sort of distant. “Pep, c’mon, I said I was sorry, right? Don’t, I mean…” He crouches in front of her, his face uncharacteristically distressed. He tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, wipes a tear away with his thumb. It should be weird, because he’s never touched her like that before, but it’s not, at all.

He stays there until she calms down, and she pulls him in for a kiss, because apparently that’s where their relationship is now, and she has _no idea_ what it means, or if she’s still resigning, or anything except that Tony is alive, for now, and he actually said he was sorry for the first time probably in his entire life.

“Tony?” She raises her eyebrows slightly, and he mirrors the expression, his eyes wide and faux-innocent. Ready for her every whim, or something like that.

“Yes, Pepper?”

“An omelet sounds good right now.”


End file.
